![]() ![]() The best I can figure, Stage Manager’s creators believe that Mac users still struggle with too many open windows and spend too much mental effort opening, closing, and moving windows around. In the end, it’s more window management than the feature is worth. Too often, clicking links in Stage Manager opens them in a new stage. Stage Manager is best thought of as a way to create arbitrary groups of windows that you can quickly switch between. So here comes the latest attempt to refine window management on the Mac: Stage Manager, which makes its debut with macOS Ventura (and iPadOS 16, but that’s another story). Over the decades it’s tried windowshades, a floating application bar, Dock minimization, single-window mode, Exposé, Spaces, Mission Control, Full Screen, and Split View, and while many of those features have been embraced by some Mac users, the company still doesn’t think that it’s cracked it. I have to admire Apple’s insistence on this topic. But Apple’s got a broader audience to serve with the Mac-there are more Mac users today than ever before, and the Mac installed base just keeps growing-and it’s never really been satisfied with the available window-management tools on the Mac. You, an expert Mac user, may be fine with the way things are. ![]() But for some users, the Mac’s windowing metaphor has led to confusion and frustration, whether it’s windows covering other windows or hidden or minimized windows being unfindable. For decades, it’s been a huge productivity boost to savvy Mac users, since it allows multiple panes of information of arbitrary sizes to be arranged arbitrarily on a user’s screen. Managing multiple overlapping windows has been a defining feature of using a Mac since 1984. Stage Manager: Another window manager on the pile The new System Settings app replaces the long-in-the-tooth System Preferences app that’s been with macOS since OS X 10.0, but lacks coherent organization and offers an inconsistent and frustrating interface. ![]() Stage Manager, a new way of grouping windows together, creates too much window-management busy work to make it worth the trouble. Both are huge updates, and huge improvements to the Mac experience.īut some other key features feel unfinished. Seven years after introducing iCloud Photos, Apple’s new iCloud Shared Photo Libraries feature finally lets people curate a shared photo collections with their loved ones. The new Continuity Camera instantly gives any Mac user with an iPhone access to a remarkably high-quality webcam (if you can find a way to mount it). In terms of the cornerstone features of this release, however, it’s more of a mixed bag. From Mail to Safari to FaceTime, there are small upgrades that will delight. macOS Ventura offers both, and many of them are quite welcome. Motivation can come from small quality-of-life improvements, or major new features. Upgrading to macOS Ventura will probably not be particularly dramatic for those who do it, and that’s a good thing.īut you do need a reason to upgrade to a new OS version. ![]() It looks the same, software acts the same, I haven’t noticed any bugs… it’s been solid. So here’s the good news about macOS Ventura: In using it the last few months as my primary operating system, I’ve found it to be not appreciably different than macOS Monterey. Whether it was bugs or incompatibilities or broken features, nothing makes the excitement of a new OS update evaporate faster than not being able to use your Mac as you’d prefer. In recent years we’ve had some macOS releases that were disruptive, in the worst way. ![]()
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